The Wall Lake Mystery

Chapter 45: Denouement

Wright broke in. "I followed upstairs, once Crowe figured out it wasn't too creaky."

Holmes gave a nod. "Crowe stole up the stairs and Wright followed after. Once in the master bedroom, Crowe cracked the safe—a considerable feat, I must admit—and emptied it of all valuables. He then removed the earrings from Mrs. Blomberg's ears for good measure and realised that Wright had taken a handkerchief of Mr. Blomberg's and placed it on the sill."

"I was against it," said Crowe. "But before we could argue about it, one or the other of them shifted in their sleep and we leapt out the window before they could wake and practically dashed back to the train station. It was about ten, but being a Friday, the last trains were yet to come."

"The two had plans to meet with young Bill Brogden, son of the shopkeeper in Sac City, but Brogden missed the appointed hour, and by a strange chance, Hieman was on his way back from rejection by his fiancée. They mistook Hieman for their man, and he went along with it. He convinced them to board the train back to Wall Lake with him and part with the most valuable of their loot."

Crowe spoke. "We were under the impression we would be meeting somewhere in Sac City, but Hieman quickly talked us round to the inconspicuousness of a train as a place to meet and reassured us that the last train back from Wall Lake to Sac City had not yet departed."

"He offered us liquor," added Wright, "which led to several boneheaded moves that night."

"Like murdering my best deputy?" growled the Sheriff.

"We shall come to that soon enough," replied Holmes. "Let us continue in the order these events occurred. The train arrived in Wall Lake, and Hieman departed with Mrs. Blomberg's heirloom necklace and a couple others among the most expensive items. Crowe and Wright then took the last train back to Sac City, and as yet they did not doubt that it was Brogden with whom they met. They arrived in Sac City and made their way to the abandoned house past the edge of town, where we later captured Wright." Holmes halted a moment, brows furrowed. "What prompted you then to return to Wall Lake, and how did you do it?"

"The real Brogden showed up at our hiding place—he was the one who told us where we could stay, relatively unnoticed—and told us his mother and one of his sisters had fallen ill and with his father gone, he'd had to care for them and had not been able to get away till then. He helped us figure out who it was we talked to and gave us directions to his place. We also discovered that he was just a kid, younger even than we thought, and cutting these jewels for us would take several times longer than we'd supposed, but he'd agreed to do it for dirt cheap, so we gave him most of the loot and he let us take his parents' two horses back to Wall Lake."

Holmes nodded, but the frown did not leave his face.

"It wasn't the perfect crime, I'll admit," said Crowe. "We'd bungled it up so badly—"

"You had bungled it up so badly," sneered Wright.

"Fine," said Crowe. "I'd screwed things up at every turn, but I really wanted that necklace, and we needed Hieman out of the way if we were to stick around, as he could surely identify either of us. Murder wasn't my first choice, but..."

"It was my first choice," said Wright with a trace of a grin.

The Sheriff seemed to be biting his tongue to keep from speaking.

"The two rode back to Wall Lake on the Brogden family horses and arrive at the home of the Hiemans. They saw a light coming from an upstairs window near the back of the house but decided to enter regardless. They crept up the stairs and found it was Hieman, with a bottle of whiskey and a few odds and ends before him on the table. He had been drinking for some time due to the loss of his fiancée and had already opened the window. Wright incapacitated him easily—"